


On My Way Back Home

by loudspeakr



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Light Angst, M/M, Reminiscing, can you tell pining!Rhett is my favourite?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 07:03:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12163896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loudspeakr/pseuds/loudspeakr
Summary: They have this annual tradition, the two of them: a picnic at the beginning of fall. This year, they relive the first.





	On My Way Back Home

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Rhink Fall Playlist 2017 challenge. Inspired by a Band of Horses song of [the same name](https://open.spotify.com/track/5qJw5V16ISycNIENMO1RD0).

Rhett reaches up for the top shelf and pulls out the old picnic blanket. He pats it once, twice, rids it of accumulated dust and sets it next to the basket on the bench. He’s about to throw in the peanut butter sandwiches when he remembers who they’re for, so he nestles them each neatly into their own corners before adding the bottle of homemade lemonade. He tosses in the last few items – shades, sunscreen, a hat to nap under – before heading out the door for the Neal house.

In the first week of fall each year, they have a picnic, just the two of them. Simple and stress-free by design, it’s their last-ditch attempt to enjoy the last of the nice weather before the six months without. It became a little more sacred after their move cross-country. Plans are cancelled, calendars cleared for the afternoon. No place else to be. This time, it’s Rhett’s turn to provide.

Link meets him in the parking lot, leaned back on the concrete barrier between tarmac and sand.

“You’re late,” he’s accused, Link biting back a smirk.

“Well, _you_ didn’t have to bring anything.”

“I don’t cook – you know that.”

“Making a sandwich is hardly cooking,” Rhett quips as he walks up. “But you make a good point.”

They set up by the water’s edge, close enough that they can dip their toes into the damp sand. It’s a far cry from their river back home, with their talking rocks and initials scratched into nearby tree trunks, but it’ll do the job for today.

Link settles down first, stretches his legs out and reaches into the basket. “Remember the first year we did this?”

“Sure I do.” Wishing he’d had the foresight to spike the lemonade, Rhett takes a sandwich for himself, careful to look as neutral as he can. “You had a fight with your mom.”

His eyes are on Link’s hands as they tear away a side of crust. “I don’t think I’ve just sat and cloud-watched since that day.”

Rhett remembers. They were eighteen, nineteen, lying on their backs, shirts drying after the river. He remembers them both falling silent, him waiting while Link watched above, waiting for his palms to quit sweating, for his heart-rate to slow, for any sign that it was finally safe to speak.

He’d made the decision a few mornings beforehand, woken up by an unsettling resolve. He was just a boy, he had years left to grow, but already he knew. He knew what he wanted.

Link needed to know as well.

Now that the moment was here though, he was stuck. What was he so afraid of? Amid the uncertainty in his future and his present, Link was his only constant. Link would never leave him or hurt him. Link was good, and Link loved him, too.

This was the perfect setting, the perfect time to confess, and yet opportunities were passing like clouds, silence growing longer with the falling shadows. When the sky began to purple, Rhett knew his time was almost up. So, adrenaline surging, he finally cleared his throat.

But Link beat him to the punch. _“Hey, you’re a good friend. I just wanted you to know.”_

And just like that, the words died on his tongue.

He’s snapped out of it by the splash of a retreating wave.

“That was twenty-three years ago,” Link murmurs before biting into his sandwich and chewing. “Isn’t that crazy?”

“It is.”

Decades later, they’re here – happy – because he didn’t get to say his piece. They endured, they stuck together, they’ve been _best friends_ all this time because Rhett never said a thing.

And that in itself is consolation, isn’t it? Because who knows what would’ve happened had Link found out? Maybe they’d have ended a long time ago, broken each other’s hearts somehow, left to live without the other in some broken reality.

Maybe what they are now is better than what would’ve been.

“Thanks, man,” he hears suddenly, and he feels Link’s fingertips on his knee. He turns to find eyes on his, bright and wide like the ocean before them. “Thanks for sticking around. For always being there.”

It’s just that… it kills him sometimes, the not knowing. And he still has time to fix that.

“I don’t say it often, but I love you, Rhett.”

But Rhett’s a man of his word, or lack thereof. The unknown will need to wait a little longer.

“Love you, too, buddyroll.”


End file.
